How to install Peghed Tuners

How to Install PegHed #7543 Tuners

Peghed Tuners (or Peghead Tuners) are lightweight planetary geared tuners. They look like old style tapered friction tuners but have an internal 4:1 gear ratio and are lightweight which make them ideal for ukuleles. As a bonus they are made in the United States. Wow!

About Peghed #7543 Tuners

Peghed tuners are manufactured in right hand and left hand threaded pegs. The direction that the string tension pulls is the tightening direction of the threaded tuner.

The ‘normal’ right hand threaded pegs will be installed on the treble side and the left hand ‘reverse’ threaded pegs go into the bass side.

STEP BY STEP INSTRUCTIONS for #7543

Test your fit on a piece of scrap wood of the same material and the same thickness as your headstock.

I find that reaming to approximately 7.5mm works for ½” thick mahogany. Softer woods want less and harder woods a little more.

Step 3 - Threading the Holes

Step 4 - Trimming the Lacquer

Approximately 1/3 of the threaded portion of the peg should be able to slip-fit into the reamed hole.

As the pegs get threaded into the headstock they will expand the hole a bit. Any lacquer finishing needs to be trimmed away to keep the lacquer from lifting as it won’t compress as the wood does. A hobby knife can be used to lightly chamfer the holes on both sides of the headstock.

Step 6 - Install Tuners

Step 5 - Test Fitting Peg Heads

Test fit the pegs dry into the reamed out hole. An optimum fit is where the nose of the peg protrudes from the front of the headstock just a half a thread or so.

I use a small pair of rib-joint pliers with a leather pad to snug the tuners up with. They don’t need to be too tight but they do want to be firmly installed.

Step 8 - Reaming Depth

Step 7 - Install with Glue

When satisfied with the fit of the pegs I brush off the threads and install them with just a dot of wood glue.

You’ll find that the threaded aluminum barrels are accurately and consistently machined so that once you have figured out how deep to ream the first hole an indicator mark can be made on your reamer easing the installation of the remaining pegs. Note that different woods and different thickness headstockss will require slightly different reaming depths.